THINK's Lightspeed C

THINK FAST!

From the April 1986 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal

I’m going to structure this post a little differently. Instead of dividing it into two sections, I’m going to look at this as one big story.

At the beginning of the month, fellow Stubstacker

Goto 10: The Newsletter for Atari Enthusiasts

wrote an article entitled A Recap of Atari 8-bit Programming Languages. While scrolling through the article, my eyes fell on a language entitled Lightspeed C. I thought to myself, “That sounds cool. I’m going to do some research.” After doing some research, I found some conflicting information. Let me show you what I discovered. (P.S. Be sure to subscribe to Goto 10.)

A Recap of Atari 8-bit Programming Languages

According to its manual, Lightspeed C was created by Ralph E. Walden and Clearstar Softechnologies for 8-bit Atari systems in 1985. The cover of the manual states, “Over 100 standard C and specialized functions to take advantage of your Atari. With commands to access Player Missile Graphics, Sound, Joystick & Paddle, Dos, System Clock, 16 floating point functions, and much, much more… Your program can run under nearly any DOS, in single or double density.”

I found very little information about Clearstar Softechnologies. I could not find any listing for the company on any corporation search. The only thing that I know is that the company was originally located in Washington in 1985, but in 1988 they had moved to North Carolina.

In 1988, Clearstar was purchased by another company, Omega Soft.

Here is the news from May of 1988 issue of Atari Explorer:

Clearstar Softechnologies, best known as the publisher of Lightspeed C, has recently been purchased by OmegaSoft of Harrells, NC. As a division of OmegaSoft, Clearstar will continue to develop new 8-bit software, as well as support its existing product line, which includes such titles as Elite Personal Accountant, TimeBomb, and Classy Chassis. According to John G. Mott of OmegaSoft, the company may begin to develop products for the Atari ST also. Clearstar can now be reached at P.O. Box 140, Harrells, NC 28444, (919) 532-2359.

Analog Computing also covered the news in their February 1989 issue:

Lightspeed C, the popular C programdevelopment language for the 8-bit computers is no longer being sold by Clearstar Softechnologies. Omega Soft, a company that distributes several products for the 8-bit Atari computer, has purchased the rights to sell Lightspeed C exclusively. C is quickly becoming the language of choice of many programmers, and Lightspeed C has been hailed as an exceptional alternative to assembly language on the 8-bit Atari. Its price is $39.95.
    Other products available through Omega Soft include the AL/65 Development System (a linker-based assembler) and DISKIO (a complete disk utility package).

At this point, you’re probably wondering when THINK Technologies will come into the picture. Well, that’s complicated. Let me start a second version of the story.

THINK Technologies was founded in 1982 by Frank Sinton, Melvin Conway, and Phillip Harris. They released Lightspeed C in mid-1986. It was developed by Michael Kahl. The product was later renamed to THINK C. THINK was purchased by Symantec in 1987.

To sum things up: apparently there were two versions of Lightspeed C, one for Atari and one for Mac. They were created by two different developers and two different companies. I can’t find anything connecting the two strains.

Regardless of who made/sold it, Lightspeed C always had good reviews. Here are a few samples.

Jerry Pournelle reviewed Lightspeed C for the August 1986 issue of Byte:

This thing compiles code at a demonic rate. It comes with a whole bunch of routines to interface it with the Macintosh, as well as a 68000 assembly language debugger...The Lightspeed documents are very clear and well written, provided, of course, that you are familiar with the C programming language; Lightspeed doesn't pretend to give you a language introduction manual. There's ample instruction on interfacing with Macintosh ROM routines, including QuickDraw, and an excellent index.

Matthew Ratcliff wrote the following for the November 1988 issue of Antic.

Most serious Atari 8-bit users, learn BASIC and many try assembly language, but the trend in the computer industry and education is toward high-level languages such as Pascal, C and Ada. The current language of choice for the Atari ST and most other personal computers is C. If you're ready to move up to the structured programming world of C, for just a small investment, Lightspeed C ($34.95) is just your speed.
This C compiler comes on several disks and includes Lightspeed DOS as well as support files for SpartaDOS. A runtime library is required for SpartaDOS, but it's integrated with Lightspeed DOS. Everything you need to create an executable C program is provided with the compiler, linker and optimizer. You can use the C program editor (CEDIT) to create your own programs or develop them with an editor of your choice.

…

I have found Lightspeed C to be complete and extremely user-friendly. I have been programming in C on the ST, PC and mainframe computers for a couple of years now, and I find the Lightspeed programming environment among the most elegant. With all the other "bigger computers" you must manage your file creation with a MAKE facility. Lightspeed C automatically generates your MAKE files for the linker.

You won't be able to write extremely large applications in Lightspeed without a lot of chaining, since its smallest runtime library is over 7K. Lightspeed C is a welcome relief from the tedium of assembly language programming and chaos of developing large BASIC programs.

Stan Krute reviewed it for the January 1988 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal:

It's hard to hold in my feelings on this product. Let’s just say this: I love it. Michael Kahl and the rest of the Think Technologies crew have given us something wonderful. This thing is fast—makes me want to stick some flame decals on the Mac. Working in the LSC environment’s a tasty treat, and I for one refuse to go back to anything slower or less capable.

…

I recently had the pleasure of spending a September afternoon at Think headquarters doing free-form nerd talk with Michael Kahl (the prime Lightspeed C programmer), Andrew Singer (head of Think and coconceiver of Lightspeed), and Doreen Duplin (marketing/communications whiz). These are nice people in whom the joy of the great hack runs deep. Interesting backgrounds: Michael was a philosophy grad student before succumbing to the lure of machine logic. Andrew's known to many of us for his classic (and, sadly, out of print) Sherlock Holmes pastiche programming books Elementary BASIC and Elementary Pascal.

{P.S. I own a copy of Elementary Pascal.}

Bob Gordon said the following about Lightspeed C in the July 1986 issue of MacTech:

LightspeedC is such a tool. Its major advantages from our point of view is that it is very fast at compiling and linking and that it places you at the correct position in your source file if the compiler detects an error. The result is that you can edit, compile, link, and run your program very rapidly, make small variations in the code and determine their effect, and generally have the opportunity to make more mistakes in a shorter period of time. If we learn from our mistakes, Lightspeed C is a useful tool for learning C on the Macintosh.

LightspeedC is different from the other available C compilers as it does not use a Unix-like setting [Yea! -Ed.] -nor does it use separate programs in the Macintosh window environment. Instead it creates its own enviornment (that follows the Macintosh User Interface) from which all editing, compiling, linking, and running take place. The integrated editor is roughly similar to the Edit application. Menus available from inside the editor allow you to run, compile, or just check the syntax. As soon as the compiler detects an error, you are returned to the editor with the cursor at the location the compiler found the error. In other words, you get one error at a time.

The link operation is extremely fast.

Did you ever use THINK’s Lightspeed C/THINK C? Do you know anything about its history? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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